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Monday, November 1, 2010

My Tiny Brain Wave #1 - Make a Fabric Tube Turner

Welcome to a new feature here at Michele Made Me which I am calling MY TINY BRAIN WAVE. On occasion, semi-regulary, when the mood strikes and the stars align, I will be posting ideas that I've come up with that are NOT A CRAFT (gasp) but rather a clever idea (in my opinion) that might help with crafting in some way.

So today in my Tiny Brain Wave #1, I will show you how to make a fabric tube turner from stuff you have at home. Now if you are not familiar with the so-called tube turner, it is a tool that one uses to take a tube of fabric that is wrong-side out and efficiently flip it good-side out. Now I suppose I could have gone out and bought myself an actual fancy-shmancy tube turner. But why, I ask you, should I spend the money when I can make one in about a minute flat from stuff I have right here?

What motivated this Tiny Brain Wave?

Recently I worked up a sweat in both the making of tiny little straps for a softie I made, and also in the making of a narrow sash for my son's Halloween costume. The whole time while struggling with these fabric tubes I was cursing internally: For the love of Pete, there's gotta be a better way to flip this flippin' thing over!!!

And so, I came up with this...

Tutorial: Fabric Tube Turner

You will need:

A large-ish plastic container of some kind

Your trusty exacto knife

A writing implement (I used a sharpie)

A ruler

1. Clean your plastic container.

2. Using your exacto knife, cut off the top of the container.

3. Draw straight lines down one of the sides of your container with the help of a ruler.

4. Cut off the lined side of the container.

5. Cut a narrow strip off the side as shown in #5 below. Mine is about 1/4 inch wide. The width will depend on the width of your fabric tube. The wider the fabric tube, the wider the strip.

6. Make a 2 inch slit in the end of your plastic strip. As shown, the slit should be 1/8 inch wide at the strip end and become narrower until it is just the width of your exacto blade.

YOUR FABRIC TUBE TURNER IS COMPLETE! Now to use it...

7. Make your fabric tube a few inches longer than intended. Cut off a few inches of fabric along the length as shown by the arrow in photo #7. So, right now your fabric tube is wrong-side out.

8. Slide your tube turner into your fabric tube.

9. Stick the cut end of your fabric tube into the slit on the tube turner and pull it firmly into the narrow end of the slit so that it stays in place.

10. Gather up the fabric tube toward the slit end of the tube turner.

11. Gently work and pull the fabric tube over the slit end of the tube turner. This will take a moment of your time. Be patient. Now, while pulling on the exposed end of your tube turner, simultaneously pull on the fabric tube keeping it between your fingers.

12. Pull the fabric tube all the way through.

It is now good-side-out. And works SO much faster than the alternative! Yippee! I love labour-saving devices!

Note: If the fabric tube that you are trying to flip over is really long, you can easily make a long fabric tube-turner by taping (with good quality packing tape) several lengths of plastic together, with the slit at one end as I've shown you.

So, that's it. My tiny brain wave. I hope this is useful to you! Let me know if you give it a go.

Wish I had seen this before I spent a frustrating hour turning out a long 1/2" tube.This is an absolutely brilliant idea. Thanks so much for sharing with us. Off to find a plastic bottle this very minute.

Hi!! I am your newest follower from the crafty link up! I love finding new blogs and yours is lovely:) You can find me at www.bouffeebambini.blogspot.comTake a peek at my giveaways if you come by. Everything is handmade and gorgeous! I love this project! great ideas

What a brilliant idea and way to repurpose that container!! I'm going to have to make one of these. What would happen if you made a really long spiral instead of taping straight sticks together? I want to make some longer tubes. Guess I'll just have to try it out. :)

Hmmm.. would it be silly to admit that I have never even heard of a tube turner? I have always used the old safety pin method. I guess I have been missing out! I will have to give this a try. Thanks for sharing your brilliant idea!

Very clever, Michele! I have visited your blog a few times, and am always amazed at your creativity. I think I'm going to put you on my "must read" list. Thanks for posting this...oh, and I loved your "Feast of the Flowers" project,too.

Hi,if the tube is REALLY long you could make a little hole at the other end of the plastic, attach strong string/ribbon/yarn and pull the plastic. I mean instead of taping few pieces of plastic. I hope you see what I am trying to explain.All best,Ewa

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Welcome to my craft blog, Michele Made Me! My name is Michele Pacey, and this is where I share my various creative escapades and bits of my life. The connecting thread throughout the blog is one of appreciation for the simple things, and for making do. I hope you'll be inspired to make and make do along with me!

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I am ecstatic if you choose to link to this site, use a brief description, one photo, or link back to any of my posts. Do not republish entire posts without my permission. Tutorials, patterns and printables are for your personal use only and are not to be used to make items for sale. Thank you.